Today up early and on the road to Monaco. Very happy with our house in St Antonin-du-Var in many ways, but it is quite a long and stressful drive to the motorway - which we have found ourselves on most days this week.
Monaco. 1.75km square. 3 brand new Rolls Royces in a row outside the casino, making the multiple new Ferraris seem tame. Immaculate public parks. Weird uniforms on parking inspectors. I turned right instead of left and momentarily re-entered France. Plausible coffee. Dated architecture. Some beautiful buildings. Russians with way too much makeup. Loafers and boat shoes everywhere. Short skirts everywhere. Nannies walking children and dogs. Vaguely surprised not to see a Bugatti Veyron or a Maclaren F1. A pamplemousse crepe.
And so much more.
Lunch at La Mere Germaine in Villafranche-sur-mer. Awesome meal and great service. Smoked salmon, followed by veal, followed by icecream, with rose, perrier and coffee. Sat right on the waterfront. Literally 3 metres from the sea, watching the yachts in the harbour. An amazing location, watching tourists and locals.
Arrived back at the house for a late afternoon swim and relax, then a BBQ dinner. Tomorrow we begin our long journey home.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Friday - Monaco and Villefranche-sur-mer
Friday, July 16, 2010
St Antonin-du-Var
Our rented house in St Antonin-du-Var is great - plenty of space inside and out and a really great pool. The only negative is that it is up a very windy little road with multiple blind turns and the drive to the coast is fairly long and stressful.
Saturday evening a swim in the pool, then a bbq. Very relaxing.
Sunday we sadly said goodbye to R and S, and M and J1 went for a day-trip to Nice. A and J2 joined us in the afternoon - time for another swim. While waiting for them we went to the local antique/junk market in Carces and picked up some incredibly cheap stuff. If found at a Victorian antique market it would all be price at multiples of the prices (in some cases at least 25-50 times!!). Now our challenge is to get it home. I guess I didn't really need those shoes.
Sunday night we drove in to Lorgues for dinner at Le Bistro Gourmet in Lorgues. A really good meal and good value.
Monday in St Tropez - wandered through the old port, a tour by boat around the region, then dropped A and J2 off at New Coco Beach Club and stayed for a drink, then M and I drove around and checked out the surrounding towns - particularly La Croix-Valmer and Gassin - both looked like they would make great places to stay. A long, slow drive home in traffic.
Tuesday spent touring the region. Entrecasteux, Salernes and Sillans-la-Cascade. Entrecasteux was very cute, with an imposing castle. Salernes was mostly shut when we were there. Sillans-la-Cascade had a beautiful waterfall about 1km from town, and a natural pool with amazing light-blue water. Lunch at a little place (the only little place) in the centre of town. We shared the outdoor dining area with various local dogs, and with staff who between them had most of a good set of teeth. Luckily the food was pretty good, inexpensive and the 3-course menu included wine.
Wednesday visited Cannes and Sainte Marguerite - to be the subject of a separate post.
Today visited Grasse - also to be the subject of a separate post.
This evening enjoyed sunset at the house in the pool and while snacking.
Johnny
Bought an early Johnny Hallyday album (on CD) at the supermarket earlier today.
After hearing half the first song, M announced that it was the worst 5 Euros we'd spent since we arrived.
moi, je suis en desaccord
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Finishing up in the Cote du Rhone
Friday morning the first of our visitors arrived. M and J1 flew over from London and arrived shortly before lunchtime. We gave them a couple of minutes to settle in, then marched them up the hill towards Seguret for lunch.
As I may have mentioned, Seguret is the next village over and just a few kilometres away (uphill). It is very beautiful and about the same size as Sablet.
It is just incredibly hot in the middle of the day, and the very pleasant 3 - 4 km was hot and sweaty worked. We arrived at La Table du Comtat at the top of Seguret dripping and looking forward to our lunch. As with our previous lunch there, we weren't disappointed. Fantastic food in beautiful surroundings.
A wander back through the vineyards and we were in Sablet. R and S arrived from London a little later - great to see them.
A few hours later headed to Le Grand Pres in Roaix for dinner - my first Michelin-starred restaurant. An amazing meal. Multiple fantastic amuse-bouche, a salmon entree, a great fish main, a very good cheese course and a mind-blowing desert with multiple raspberry-based concoctions. And very good service. Very highly recommended.
M ferried us there in two trips, as we couldn't all fit in one car and she wasn't up for drinking - very nice of her!
The next morning we packed and left Sablet, stopping in Chateauneuf du Papes - a town at the centre of a famous wine region of the same name. A cute little town with many places to try (and buy) the local wines.
Then headed on towards St Antonin-du-Var.
Friday, July 09, 2010
More of me in Sablet and surrounds
Today was market day for M and I. As soon as we got up we headed to Vacqueyras, to what proved to be a pretty small market with very few people. Settled for a coffee. The guy working at the cafe was chatty but dismissive until he realised we were neither English nor American, but Australian. He was immediately animated and curious and stretching his English.
Next to Cairanne, a few kilometres away. It had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it market, but a very cute old town high up on the hill.
Then on to Orange. A much bigger town (almost 30,000 people) with a huge market selling fruit and vegetables, clothes, handiworks, meats, cheeses and more. The meat and cheeses were cooking before our eyes in the close-to-40-degrees weather with no refrigeration. A really fun market to wander through and look at and smell and people-watch.
Went to the Ancient Theatre in Orange - a 2,000 year old Roman theatre in extremely good condition, with a bizarre audio-visual display recreating various performances in very well-preserved spaces under the seats (built into a hillside). Very impressive. Checked out the smallish Orange museum (including an interesting display of photos of Roman ampitheatres around the world - a few of which I've seen and many of which I haven't).
Lunch at A La Maison in Orange. Great service and food, well-priced, great atmosphere sitting outside in the square. Very very hot, even under an umbrella.
Headed home to get out of the sun for a while, then a long walk when it started cooling down.
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Provence
Sablet et cie
Saturday morning up early and M and I went for a long walk around Paris. The Luxembourg Gardens and the fourth, fifth and sixth arrondissements. Very beautiful. The weather was ominous and burst into a huge electrical storm as we sat down for a crepe. Then back to the (very cute) Hotel Le Petit Paris to finish packing and taxi to Paris-Gare de Lyon to catch a train to Avignon.
The train was great - very fast and efficient - less than 3 hours from Paris to Avignon. Picked up our car without queuing (BMW 118D) and headed towards Sablet. About a 40 min drive. A few nervous minutes getting used to driving on the "wrong" side of the road, then it was totally fine.
Sablet is a very very cute walled village of maybe a few hundred people. It has existed for many hundreds of years and has - only in recent centuries - expanded beyond the ramparts. Our little house is set into the ramparts, and the outer walls are multiple-metres-thick stone. We are fairly safe from an arrow or cannonball attack, regardless of the ferocity. It is two bedrooms and two bathrooms, with a kitchen a living room and a terraced garden set over 3 little floors. Nicely fitted-out and well-restored from what was presumably a run-down shell not all that many years ago.
After arriving we settled in, then M and I went for a walk around the village - narrow cobblestoned streets, little houses set into stone walls, a few shops - very quiet and very beautiful. Amazing views of the surrounding countryside at every turn. Dinner at home (great to have a home-cooked meal after a couple of weeks of restaurant meals!).
Sunday morning we left H in Sablet and M and I drove to Lyon - about a 2 1/2 hour drive. Stopped on the way in Rochegut, an almost supernaturally cute little town. Everywhere I looked was worthy of (many) photos. One of the prettiest places I have ever seen and a very sleeply little place. Continued on to Lyon to meet M's old friend Emmanuelle and her family at the Botanical Gardens. Finding the right gate and parking were incredibly stressful and we were very late. Eventually found Emmanuelle and her husband and beautiful kids Jeanne and Louis. Good to meet them and we had a really great picnic in the gardens and then played petanque with the kids. Wandered around the park and the free zoo in the centre of the gardens (elephants, lions, tigers, monkeys - and more!).
Headed home. A long day - ended up being 6 1/2 + hours of driving.
Dinner in Sablet - a fairly average pizza place.
Monday M and I walked to Seguret, the next village. A very beautiful village high on a hill. The walk through vineyards was incredible - although we got totally lost and ended up retracing our steps and walking along the road. A few kilometres each way. Then M, H and I had fantastic breads from the local boulangerie for breakfast, relaxed, then headed back to Seguret for lunch at La Table du Comtat. Amazing. Well-priced, incredible food. Ate the menu of the day - no choices, they simply bring you an entree, main and desert (plus a couple of tastes in-between). Sat in the courtyard under a huge oak tree - a very relaxing way to spend a few hours. The owner/waiter was emblematic of many of my encounters to date in France - he was so distressed by my attempts at French he appeared to by in physical pain.
A short drive and a wander around Roiax, a small village.
A nap.
Tuesday we headed off to Avignon. The home of the Popes for a period in the fourteenth (?) century and the proud owner of a fairly impressive papal palace. Toured the palace - impressive but the experience was somehow uninvolving - then headed to Saint Benezet's Bridge. Apparently there is a children's nursury rhyme about the bridge and M insisted on dancing around in a circle.
Drove H to Avignon TGV station for her train to Paris - the end of her holiday. Waited with her for her train, then headed back into Avignon for a wander around. Saw some very cute and interesting parts of the city, and stumbled on the old synagogue. We went in and really enjoyed it - a beautiful, small circular room with many colums and quite unlike any other synagogue I've seen.
Eventually drove home to Sablet the (very) long way around. We managed to get quite significantly lost on a relatively simply drive and it took us about 2 hours for a 40 minute trip.
Eventually arrived home and then headed out to dinner at Dolium in Beaumes de Venise. Fantastic food - a tomato entree, followed by a really great duck dish and then a lime pannacotta-style desert. The meal was enjoyed with great local wine (Gigondas AOC) then muscat, the local speciality, came with desert.
Today a long walk to Seguret via a different and even more spectacularly-beautiful walking path. Then a breakfast comprising ever-more incredible breads from the local boulangerie. Relax time. This afternoon headed out to Vaison la Romaine (a town rich with Roman and medieval history and built on an incredibly steep hill. Also with really good shopping). Then drove to Carpentras. Slightly run-down, but a fun place to sit in the main square drinking coffee and people-watching. Headed back to Sablet, then an enjoyable dinner in Gigondas at Du Verre a l'Assiette. The waiters again suffered through my French, mostly without complaint. Gigondas is well-known for its wine and is another pretty little town.
The Cote du Rhone is proving to be incredibly beautiful, with great food and wine. Who would have guessed?
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Paris
A busy few days...
Wednesday visited the Western Wall - an emotional experience.
Then the Jerusalem Archeological Park and Davidson Centre - absolutely fantastic, I can't believe I didn't go last time I was in Jerusalem. The ruins are extremely impressive and in particular the remains of the 'street' right next to the Western Wall (ie. the retaining wall around the temple mount) comes to life as a bustling marketplace and thoroughfare.
After a felafel break in the Jewish Quarter, the Western Wall Tunnels. Even better than I remembered it. A travel experience no-one should miss. It is so incredibly fascinating to be under the Old City and seeing Jerusalem 2,000 years ago - and the foundations of the Western Wall laid in King Herod's time (ie. the first century BC).
Thursday a very early flight to Paris. A fairly ugly Air France experience which is probably best left undiscussed. Ultimately arrived at Hotel Le Petit Paris in the Latin Quarter - possibly my favourite of all the boutique hotels I've stayed in. Love it.
A quick change then off to the Louvre. Only had a couple of hours before it closed, so I limited myself to the stuff I couldn't miss - the thirteenth to sixteenth century French, Dutch, German and Italian paintings, and the Greek and Roman statues. A phenomenal collection in a very beautiful building. Obviously very much more time is needed to see it properly.
Dinner at Bistroy Les Papilles. An absolutely fantastic meal. The only option is the Menu - one choice for each course. A really great mint and cucumber gazpacho, a chicken dish with pesto, a cheese course then a really good panna cotta.
This morning M arrived - yay. Very happy to see her. A quick breakfast, then walked around Paris for hours. Notre Dame - amazing. Ended up on a boat tour on the Seine for an hour for a break from walking. Then the Musee d'Orsay. Lunch there in the very attractive restaurant then a look at the phenomenal collection of impressionists and etc.
Paris is extremely hot at present.